Onstage: People are running around frantically and slamming doors in a series of near-misses that is highly reminiscent of Scooby-Doo chase scenes. Backstage: People are trying to kill each other in a jealous rage and keep a bottle of Jameson from the resident alcoholic. Clothes come off on both sides of the set, one girl spends most of the play in lingerie and there are sardines everywhere. Interested yet?
If you think you have nothing to do this weekend, you’re wrong. Not even counting the other great productions opening this week, you do not want to miss Noises Off.
Noises Off, which is being performed in The Louis Room at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, is a play-within-a-play and a farce-within-a-farce. Produced by WAVE Productions, it tells the story of nine Brits struggling to put on the play Nothing On in three acts — the disastrous dress rehearsal, a mid-season matinee performance and their final performance. Each character is dynamic, slightly ridiculous and completely hilarious. Most of the humor in the first act comes from the inability of the company to rehearse professionally, despite the urgency of their upcoming opening. We then begin to see individual quirks and personalities and the relationships between the characters, which becomes largely important in the following acts.
The show uses gross misunderstandings and a lot of slapstick and sexual humor to keep the audience laughing (you’ll see a lot of underwear). The second act is by far the most impressive part of the show. The entire set is taken apart and flipped around, and we get to see the play from backstage. Due to a series of love triangles, jealous lovers and basic miscommunication, the relationships in the cast devolve into pure drama and anger — almost all the actors wield an axe at some point. Because it’s backstage, the characters remain silent and pantomime an intense series of conflicts at breakneck speed. At the same time, they are performing the actual play onstage, where we can only hear dialogue, and constantly running back to continue fighting. The timing has to be precise, and the cast manages it perfectly. It’s truly one of the most impressive bits of theater I’ve ever seen, and the high-speed action keeps you tense throughout the act.
Because timing is so important, the direction of Noises Off all the more impressive. It’s easy to see that a lot of time and effort went forth into the staging of the show. It’s also easy to see that the cast spent a lot of time rehearsing. All of the actors performed wonderfully as individuals and as a group, with good chemistry between all the characters. From the frustrated and overbearing director to the poor, put-upon stagehands, everyone put on a great performance, so it’s difficult to single any one out for individual praise. Chris Leck and Jonathon Webster did wonderfully as two of the more sympathetic characters, an overworked and timid stagehand and an over-thinker who’s overly sensitive to violence respectively. And Alex Ryser easily played one of the more humorous roles as Selson Mowbray, an alcoholic actor past his prime who has trouble remembering his entrances and lines. But the show’s best selling point is truly the strength of its cast as a whole.
Noises Off is an incredibly funny and entertaining show. The entire cast and crew put on an amazing performance that is definitely worth a view or two, so take a break from studying, stop sitting around and go laugh your pants off.